Pope Benedict XVI
As I stressed during the funeral, dear Father Giussani was striking, above all for his steadfast faithfulness to Christ and for his unremitting effort in communicating the wealth of the Gospel message to every social category. His spiritual children have now the task of continuing to walk in his footsteps, following his teaching and remaining always in communion with the Bishops and other components of the Church. To this end I assure you of my prayers, asking the Lord that Communion and Liberation might serve the cause of the Gospel in joy, carrying on the work begun by its venerated founder.Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.
Dear sisters and brothers, know that you must live that faith. Know that you must love that faith, know that you must never be afraid to proclaim that faith, and know that you must never, ever, be ashamed of that faith. This is the message that I want to give you on this great anniversary; this is the prayer that I have for you, that as you read and study and meditate on all the teachings of Don Luigi, into your lives may come that deepest faith that liberates, and that deepest faith that binds us together in communion. It is that deepest faith that we must share with others, so that from that faith may come the victory of the Lord–He who truly is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, O.P., Archbishop of Vienna
I believe that Fr. Giussani saved many, because he showed many the way of truth; a person like him covers a multitude of sins. Pope Benedict defines you as the spiritual sons of Fr. Giussani. I am 68 years old, and I lived personally the crisis of the 1968 generation; at that time, we would have been unable to agree with each other. We rejected paternity, authority, and discipleship, because we were convinced that these things were incompatible with true human dignity. We wanted to be brothers, and we forgot that it is impossible to be brothers and sisters without parents. Thank God, the Lord aroused in the Church people who showed us how we could be brothers and sisters only by having a father.Camillo Cardinal Ruini, President, Italian Bishop’s Conference
But of one thing we are sure: in order to remain faithful to itself and to renew itself continually, the Movement of Communion and Liberation is called upon to draw over and over again from the source of the teaching and the witness of its founder. Fr. Giussani’s charism, read and lived in the great riverbed of the Church’ tradition, will be fruitful with missionary initiatives, speculative and theological studies, and charitable works. This will make it possible to write new pages of the Movement’s history, as the development and maturation of what he has initiated. Fr. Giussani’s teaching and example are like yeast that has certainly not exhausted its power, and it will go on bearing new fruits now after his death.Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Moscow
Along with John Paul II and Sr. Lucia, Fr. Giussani was an important sign for the Church and for the future of Christianity: even though he was born and was educated during the Fascist period in Italy, his figure is the proof that man’s freedom, his awareness of the truth, cannot be overcome by anything. And more, Giussani had a starting intuition, which later became fundamental in his charism, the charism of the Movement of GS and later Communion and Liberation: the intuition of how important the task of education is, the formation of a human person who will be truly himself, free and responsible.Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Archbishop of Milan
In this sense, I invite everyone to thank the Lord for the gift He made to the Church in the person and the work of this Milanese priest, Fr. Luigi, for the gift, in Pope Benedict’s words, of “such a zealous priest, in love with man because he was in love with Christ.” We are together in wishing to thank the Holy Father for the friendship he had for Monsignor Giussani, for his personal participation in his funeral held in this Cathedral, and for his letter on this first anniversary. I feel the need to pray to the Lord for all of Fr. Giussani’s “spiritual children” so that they may take up with trust and courage, under the guidance of his successor, Fr. Carrón, “the task”–once again the Pope’s words–“of going on walking in his footsteps, following his teaching, and always remaining in communion with the bishops and other components of the Church.” The celebration ends, life goes on. May it go on for all in a greater and greater love for Christ and His Church, “so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21).Archbishop Jan Pawel Lenga of Karaganda (Kazakhstan)
Fr. Giussani who was born far from Kazakhstan, in Milan, brought the announcement of Christ through his priests, and made it possible to adhere to Him. And now there are no more borders, only grace.Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna
Monsignor Giussani had the gift from the Holy Spirit of the particular charism of directing the look of those he met towards the Fact for which exists all that exists. “The Word was made flesh and set up His dwelling amongst us.” His charism was to direct people to look upon Him whom men pierced, so as to have life from Him. “Look towards Him and be radiant,” Fr. Giussani seemed to say to everyone who met him. “This is the Christian message: Beauty became flesh and experienced ‘in frail human frames/ learn with what ills our mortal life doth swarm,’” and “this is man’s natural cry that nature inspires, it is man’s cry, his prayer that God become a companion and an experience” (L. Giussani, Le mie letture, BUR, p. 30). Fr. Giussani’s educational genius lay in his capacity to make every person he met hear this cry that wells up in everyone’s heart: that God become a companion and an experience for him. […] Yes, dear friends, because the true question to which all cultural endeavor leads back is this: who does man live for? If we answer, “For himself,” the ultimate cultural horizon becomes a concept and an experience of deceptive autonomy which devastates the humanity of the poor and the lowly.The above quotes were assembled by Fr. Meinrad Miller, OSB.
No comments:
Post a Comment